On Wednesday 23/01/08 I ordered a refurbished 20" iMac from the Apple UK online store, this item was delivered on Thursday 24/01/08 but due to being away on business I was unable to receive it in person. I returned from my trip late on Friday 08/02/08, and on the morning of Saturday 09/02/08 I un-boxed the iMac and installed it at my desk. The machine worked beautifully to begin with but after several minutes I noticed a fault with the display whereby it would become pixelated, develop a grey hue and flicker intermittently.
I contacted Apple Technical Support who suggested a number reasons this may be happening including the fact that I had installed additional RAM, they suggested returning the original RAM to the iMac to see if that made a difference as well as downloading and installing the iMac Graphics Firmware Update 1.0; they asked me to persevere as the fault was intermittent to see if it returned, it did.
I contacted Apple Technical Support for the second time and this time suggested taking the unit to an Apple Authorized Service Provider for repair under warranty, they then gave me some contact details, but being a Saturday I was unable to contact either of my 2 local Service Providers and decided to wait until Monday.
On Monday 11/02/08 I contacted my local Service Providers, both of whom informed me that a repair would take at least 2-3 weeks if the replacement parts were in stock. I could not wait this long and contacted Apple Technical Support for a third time and spoke to a very helpful agent called Paulo, I explained my situation to him and stated that due to needing the machine for both work and pleasure I simply could not afford to wait that length of time for a repair. Even though I was outside of the 14-day replacement window Paulo said that he would speak to Sales for me, he then transferred me to an agent called Fiona who explained to me that she was going to arrange a collection of the faulty unit and a replacement that would be sent after it had been collected, she also stated that she would be sending out a brand new unit and not a refurbished one.
I then waited for the returns number which was emailed to me and boxed up the faulty unit ready for collection, in the mean time I received an email confirming the replacement stating that it would be shipped on or before 12/02/08, with an estimated delivery date of 12/02/08 - 14/02/08. Having spent most of the day today waiting for the item to be collected the courier finally arrived late this afternoon to collect it, shortly afterwards I received an email stating that the replacement item was not available and therefore could not be shipped.
So I contacted the Apple Helpline and spoke to an agent called Katherine, I explained the situation to her and impressed upon her why my need for a replacement was so great, she stated that Apple do not issue replacements for faulty refurbished units, after several minutes of banter she asked me to hold, she then came back to me and reiterated that Apple policy is not to issue replacements for faulty refurbished units. At this point I had become increasingly frustrated and asked to speak with a manager, she simply stated that I could not be transferred to a manager but that one would call me back within 30 minutes, I asked her to confirm this and she then said that they would call me by the end of the night. Before ending the call I asked her what I should do if I they did not contact me to which she responded "call back I guess".
